This week's scrap collection from the business beat
Sun Nov 9,12:41 PM ET
OTTAWA (CP) - The hidden federal levy on cassette tapes, blank CDs and other recordable media is unfair to consumers and copyright holders, and is a "poison pill" for the music industry, says a coalition of retailers and technology companies.
The levy - intended to compensate musicians and others for copying of their content - "is indiscriminate and unfair, and our customers are telling us they are unhappy," says Diane Brisebois, president of the Retail Council of Canada.
"Many consumers are forced to pay the levy even when the recordable media are not used to record copyrighted music."
The levy, in place since 1998, cost Canadians $59 million by the end of last year, according to Doug Cooper, president of Intel Canada.
"This levy was implemented at the end of the audio cassette era and has become completely out of step with fast-moving technological developments," Cooper contends.
"Why should Canadians who are buying music online have to pay for it twice - once when they download it, then again when they buy a blank recording medium on which to store the paid content?" he adds.
"Canadians don't want the music industry to double dip."
In addition to being bad for users it is bad for the content industry, he says: "The continued use of levies as a compensation tool for major record labels, publishers and artists is a disincentive to the music industry from adopting innovative technologies to protect and manage their content."
The levy - 60 cents on a cassette tape, 59 cents on a recordable CD, $1.23 on a minidisc and $2.27 on a DVD, with the industry pressing for more - is normally hidden in the retail price.
The Commons committee on Canadian heritage has received a submission from the Canadian Coalition for Fair Digital Access, which in addition to the Retail Council and Intel includes AMD, Apple, Best Buy/Future Shop, Costco, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Radio Shack, London Drugs, Micron, Motorola, Sony, Staples Business Depot and Wal-Mart.